


Carpathia

by Kablob, mylordshesacactus



Series: Star Trek: Challenger [6]
Category: Star Trek
Genre: Alien Cultural Differences, Distress Call, Ethical Dilemmas, Gen, RMS Titanic, Rescue Missions, Self-Sacrifice, i did fucking MATH for this episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:27:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22069258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kablob/pseuds/Kablob, https://archiveofourown.org/users/mylordshesacactus/pseuds/mylordshesacactus
Summary: 1.06 | A frantic message in the dark, a doomed ship, and a race against time.
Series: Star Trek: Challenger [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1439929
Comments: 39
Kudos: 47





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> HAPPY NEW YEAR I GUESS.
> 
> In all seriousness though: This one is emotionally intense. Read the title, read the tags, yeah?

[X](https://youtu.be/FpdxvL61zr8?list=LLtCjrYmG1qqxEIjzhIwysBA)

**Captain’s Log, September 21, 2154**

I hope we’re not making a terrible mistake.

 _Challenger_ picked up a signal approximately eight hours ago from a ship in distress. The transmission was sparse on detail, to say the least; all we gather is that the vessel experienced some form of internal damage and loss of helm control, something about a malfunctioning warp bubble, and a plea for help.

On the surface, then, our obligations are clear. We are in range to assist, and will arrive at the ship’s location within the next two hours.

Unfortunately, the situation is complicated by the IFF signal embedded in the transmission.

Orions. Having run the identification code through the database of what little we know of this sector, we have every reason to believe this specific vessel is a slave ship. The ID pattern matches, the location and ship type are consistent.

We are obligated to assist any ship in distress, but there are higher obligations. Starfleet Command has cautioned that we do not have the right to appoint ourselves judge, jury and executioner out here. I acknowledge those orders. I would add, on this official record, that _no one_ has the right to stand by and do nothing while slavery exists. One way or another, this vessel will never be used to harm another living soul.

Speculation won’t help us now. The ship has not answered any messages sent in response; maybe they’ve blown up, and saved us the trouble of untangling the ethical implications. Somehow, I doubt the universe has suddenly decided to make things that easy. I shouldn’t say that. I don’t really believe it. If there’s any chance of freeing whatever innocents may be aboard, I can only hope we get there in time to save them.

Once we arrive, we’ll be better able to analyze the situation and determine the right course of action. Until then, I should probably stop pacing around the situation room. I think I’m making Gamma Shift nervous.

* * *

A faint jingling filled Aleksi’s dimly-lit cabin.

“I have to admit,” said Atsa. “This is the first time I’ve ever seen a cat play fetch.”

Aleksi sat down on the floor next to him, watching Moomin roll around on the floor and bat at the lure toy Atsa was periodically throwing for her. He offered his...well, whatever he and Atsa were starting to become to one another, Aleksi offered him one of the mugs of coffee he’d made. He got a smile and quiet thanks, and his attempt at a shy smile in return was interrupted by a yawn.

Normally, they’d adjust their warp speed in flight so as to time their arrival with Alpha Shift starting. Answering a distress signal, however, meant _Challenger_ was going as fast as she could and the command team was just going to have to adjust their sleep schedules and suck it up.

Hence, coffee. Coffee was good. And, no offense to Atsa personally, but Aleksi Lehtonen was of the firm opinion that nobody who lived anywhere that frequently broke forty-two degrees in the shade could be trusted to properly prepare a hot beverage.

Moomin, having successfully “killed” her feathered bell, ran up to Atsa with the lure hanging from her mouth and wound entreatingly around his torso while he tried not to spill coffee on her.

“All right,” he protested. “All right, pretty girl! Here you go. Go get it!”

He flicked the lure up onto one of Moomin’s many carpeted shelves, and she darted off after it. Atsa shook his head in amazement. 

“I _swear_ they don’t usually do that.”

“A lot of cats like playing fetch, actually,” Aleksi told him, taking a long sip of coffee and waiting for it to kick in. _“Eikö se ole totta, Moominkissa?_ People just don’t bother to try. Cats that like fetch rarely have owners willing to put in the time to play with them, and a lot of dogs don’t play fetch but their owners don’t know any other real games to play, so they give up on enrichment for their dogs altogether.”

“We should film a PSA,” Atsa said with an easy smile, taking the lure from Moomin again and this time flinging it into Aleksi’s bunk where she had to dig through the tangled blankets and pillows to find it. “I bet we could justify it to Starfleet. _Pet Enrichment And You: Play With Your Damn Cat Already_.”

Aleksi grinned, a little embarrassed; the degree to which he loved his cats had always been a source of affectionate mockery from his family, but Atsa didn’t feel mocking. “I’ve just had a lot of time to learn about this stuff. I got my first rescue when I was _seven,_ and I hadn’t even transitioned yet back then.”

“Oh, wow.” Atsa was suitably impressed. “That must’ve been _forever_ ago. What was her name?”

“His,” Aleksi corrected. “I named him _Muste._ It means—”

“Ink,” Atsa supplied. Aleksi shot him a flat glare, and he grinned. “What? Comm officer. That’s about the extent of my Finnish, though, and I only know that much because basic colors are, like, lesson one. I can’t believe you named your black cat ‘Blackie’.”

“I was seven!” Aleksi tossed his head with faux disdain. “And for your information, Muste was a _silver tabby._ I named him that because the black marbling looked like someone had drawn on him with a calligraphy pen.”

Atsa’s smile was achingly fond. “All right,” he said. “You win. This is perfect, by the way,” he added, holding up his mug. It had a smiling duck on it. “You’re spoiling me. I may never make my own coffee again.”

“Good,” said Aleksi, taking Moomin’s toy away from her as she came back yet again and throwing it onto the highest shelf he could aim for. She raced after it. “Your coffee is an abomination.”

* * *

The air on the bridge was nearly solid with tension.

No one was happy about this. Sofia Matos was significantly less happy than any of them, and _that_ was saying a lot.

Yurovsky’s reports came too quiet, her fingers slow and nearly hesitant at her station. Ensign Sandoval hadn’t moved so much as a finger since arriving on the bridge; he was frozen like he’d been carved from stone, one hand on his headset deceptively casually until you noticed the way his knuckles stood out, the other placed where he could acknowledge and mute notifications as they came without needing to make any movements large enough to see. 

Lehtonen was the opposite, his foot jiggling so rapidly Sofia was convinced he’d sprain his ankle somehow. He twisted a small metal fidget toy between his fingers in a blur, somehow managing to keep the intertwined rings silent on the noiseless bridge.

And Esther, whose behavior was otherwise normal, was eerily, uncharacteristically silent. At this point, Sofia knew enough to find that more worrying than anything else.

Finally, her Science officer spoke. Her voice was flat enough that it took Sofia a moment to realize it was Esther’s at all.

“Possible confound,” she announced. “Long-range sensors show what could be an ion storm, converging on the coordinates from the opposite direction as _Challenger_.”

Lehtonen’s blonde head barely twitched. “Will it get there before we do?”

Esther glanced at the viewscreen readout and shook her head, once. “Not enough to interfere with warp, engines, or weapons for at least an hour. Comms will be unreliable, though.”

“It could be a trap,” Yurovsky said, quiet.

Sofia’s bones ached with how easily she could seize on that excuse—that she suspected a trap, that the conditions were too dangerous and she was holding her ship back until they had time to coordinate with other forces. Until she could make this someone _else’s_ problem.

Life wasn’t that easy. Besides—she couldn’t justify delaying, not morally. There were almost certainly prisoners on that ship...and even their captors, scum though they might be, were living beings. Extrajudicial execution, even through inaction, was a right Sofia neither held nor wanted. There were laws for this kind of thing. _Those,_ she would use against them without hesitation.

And so there was nothing to do, for now, but watch their distance from the signal coordinates tick down on the display screen. Sofia would have given just about anything to make the merciless ETA countdown move faster.

At twenty minutes out, Sofia gave the order for yellow alert.

At fifteen, she had Yurovsky ready phase cannons, just to be safe.

Ten minutes out.

Five. She ordered photonic torpedos prepared, and had Esther ready to polarize the hull the moment they dropped out of warp.

Four. Three. Two. One. Thirty seconds.

“Inform the Orion vessel that we’re coming out of warp,” she said, not recognizing her own voice. Ensign Sandoval gave a quiet affirmative and sent a signal from his console.

A social slight, given the circumstances. Normally, when responding to a vessel in distress, he would have taken the time to send them a voice hail—it was a reassuring touch, the comfort of human compassion (for lack of a better term) when you were alone in the black of space. For slavers, the impersonal comm ping was more courtesy than they deserved.

The ETA count continued flickering down rapidly. Lehtonen silently held up a hand, fingers splayed; tucked in his thumb, then his pinkie finger, and then returned his hands to the controls for the last two seconds.

With no more sensation than stepping through a doorway, _Challenger_ slipped out of warp above the prone Orion vessel.

Sofia didn’t have time to give a signal, much less an order, before her bridge officers responded. A fraction of a second after the blur of warp travel faded from the viewscreen her helmsman’s fingers were already flying across maneuvering thruster controls, flipping _Challenger_ in space to ruin any enemy firing solutions while keeping the main phase-cannon and torpedo arrays leveled dead-center at the slavers. Even before that, Esther had already polarized the hull plating and slammed her palm into a control button programmed to activate the full short-range sensor array; almost in the same moment Yurovsky had established weapons lock on three different priority targets on the ship’s hull.

Esther’s scanner trick was only marginally for practicality. Yes, certainly, it was valuable to get as much information about the enemy ship as possible as soon as possible; if nothing else this could be a trap, though the sensor readings did seem to show a genuinely damaged ship. If this came down to a shooting match, which it likely would, _Challenger_ would also have trouble getting accurate scans mid-dogfight.

In reality, however: Many of the frequencies used by active scanners, especially at point-blank range like this, would play merry hell with the receiving party’s own electronics systems. Sofia knew that such a sensor blast would at the very least have blown out poor Ensign Sandoval’s headphones, if not his eardrums.

It was deeply, _profoundly_ discourteous, when a passive-sensor sweep followed by a slower frequency-by-frequency scan that would allow ECM systems to automatically compensate would have taken, at most, three seconds longer.

Sofia hadn’t actually _ordered_ her to do that. She made a mental note to add a commendation to Esther’s file.

She signaled comms. Atsa Sandoval waited exactly two seconds—long enough for the slavers to have reacted to the sensor blast, not long enough to have recovered—before opening the hailing frequency. His expression was like ice.

Sofia sat back in her command chair, lifted her head, and looked the enemy captain in the eye.


	2. Chapter 2

There was a wary glint in the Klingon’s eye; her jaw was tense, her lip curled, and Sofia Matos could not care less.

“Declare yourselves,” she ordered before the Klingon could speak.

The woman on the viewscreen worked her jaw with brief defiance. “I am Keyahi,” she responded, the universal translator for once working perfectly. “Daughter of Eshok. This is a free and independent crew, and I speak for it.”

Esther gave a low hiss; Sofia didn’t think it was enough to be picked up by the comm, but Atsa shot the science officer a quick look and a near-imperceptible shake of the head anyway.

“So you’re pirates,” Sofia translated, not bothering to keep the derision out of her voice. “You’re desperate enough to transmit an open, unencoded distress call, which means our scans of your vessel’s damage are accurate. You’re also just barely on the border of Klingon space, which implies you feel more comfortable there than skulking about in areas claimed by Andoria or Vulcan. Klingon authorities in this sector are easier to bribe.”

Keyahi’s eyes narrowed slightly, a calculating expression. “You are quick to mention bribery, human. This is an ugly word. My crew are reasonable; we will express proper gratitude for a rescue. This is a trade vessel. We have goods to offer in return.”

Hatred burned red in Sofia’s gut; out of the corner of her eye she saw Yurovsky’s grip tightening on the edge of her work station, and even Atsa was briefly unable to contain the disgusted curl of his lip.

“Trade goods,” Sofia repeated coldly. “How interesting. That  _ is _ a trade vessel. An altered  _ Fardel _ -class freighter, retrofit impulse engines matching Klingon small-craft carrier ships, hull number  118-01-4. That’s an Orion registry, officially owned by someone with a very different name; you’re contracting with the Syndicate.”

Keyahi bared her teeth. “As you say. You understand, then. Your help will be compensated by the Orion Syndicate. They are powerful friends, and powerful enemies. In the short term, we can come to an agreement regarding transfer of...valuable goods, from our hold.”

Sofia ignored the offer, because if she didn’t, she was going to scream. “I’m glad you mentioned your trade goods. You must have a lot of them. The  _ Fardel _ is heavy  for a blockade runner, and a larger cargo area makes it less maneuverable than the  _ Vagabond _ -class; you’ve altered your impulse engines to make up in raw speed what you lack in handling, which traders in this area commonly refer to as the coward’s build. You’re not worried about circumventing customs or dodging patrols, but you have reason to believe you’ll have to clear out of an area in a hurry if you’re ever identified. ”

“Yes.” Keyahi seemed impatient. “The Syndicate’s business often places it at such risk. We lack time for this meaningless chatter. The ship is damaged and my crew—”

_ “Your crew are slavers!” _ Sofia snapped, unable to bear it any longer. “And I don’t care what happens to them. Lieutenant-Commander, what’s the normal crew manifest for a  _ Fardel _ -class Orion freighter?”

“Fifteen to twenty, sir.” The crisp, cool professionalism belied Esther’s seething rage.

“How many lifesigns on board this ship?”

“One hundred forty-nine.”

“Slavers,” Sofia repeated. The Klingon had gone silent, jaw clenched as her eyes darted between the two humans, watching their conversation. “Damage report on the enemy vessel.”

“Oh, that thing’s totalled.” Well, professionalism had been nice while it lasted. Esther’s eyes were still hard, however. “Massive hull breaches from an internal explosion near the fore. The only reason it’s not venting plasma is that it’s run out; cascade failures in internal electronic systems; warp core is critical. Structural integrity’s  _ completely _ fucked; the internal supports for the nacelles are warped past repair. Engineering agrees that a sloppy warp transition with the safeties off could cause that, or an unstable warp bubble, and there’s physical damage all along the starboard side. That much looks a bit like  _ Challenger _ did a month ago, actually.”

Sofia took a deep breath and let it out quietly.

“Structural integrity is  _ what, _ Lieutenant-Commander?”

Esther appeared to be thinking very hard.

“Sir,” she added as an afterthought.

Sofia gave up. “ETA on that ion storm.”

“Five minutes out and closing. We’re getting the first hints of interference already.”

“Lieutenant?”

“If we’re going to warp we’d better do it now, sir,” Lehtonen reported. “And I wouldn’t risk high impulse even if the wavefront hasn’t hit yet. That’s just a personal preference, though, Captain, Starfleet safety regulations would still allow it.”

“We’re getting comm static,” Ensign Sandoval reported quietly. “At the three-minute mark I’m going to shut down the array to protect it, sir, unless you order otherwise.”

Sofia leaned forward.

“Here’s how this is going to work,” she informed Keyahi. “You will allow my security forces to board your ship and confine you and your entire crew to the bridge. You will cooperate fully as we tend to your prisoners. Then and only then, assuming that insult to garbage scows hasn’t exploded, you will surrender yourselves into our custody and be taken to whatever planet’s jurisdiction has the most robust system in place to make you face the consequences of your actions. If you refuse any of those terms, you may of course remain onboard your ship for as long as you like. Engineering, how long do you think that warp core will last?”

Tisarr’s answer on the comm was immediate.  _ “It is a miracle it has not already exploded. We need to start the evacuation immediately, and send an Engineering team to control the damage. Two hours, at maximum.” _

Something odd had changed in Keyahi’s face. Sofia had rather assumed that an angry glower was the natural state of a Klingon face, and it wasn’t that Keyahi  _ wasn’t _ scowling, but...there’d been a flash of emotion, something that was neither anger nor fear. She seemed to be standing a little straighter, and the line of tension through her shoulders had changed.

“Your men will be given a warrior's welcome,” she said, a fierce smile almost twisting at the edge of her mouth. “It seems we can negotiate after all.”

That set off alarm bells in the back of Sofia’s mind. Her quick glance at Esther might have been missed; the Science officer immediately began running more scans, looking for ships entering or hiding in the system, but no threat markers overlaid the viewscreen as she visibly struggled to cut through interference from the rising ion storm. There was no way Keyahi could have missed Sofia half-turning to meet Yurovsky’s eyes and get a quick head-shake—negative on internal threats, but Security would do a full sweep regardless—but the quick communication took priority over appearing unruffled.

“That was not a threat, Matos.” Keyahi looked amused, and Sofia fought the urge to bare her teeth—it would never be as impressive as a Klingon doing the same thing. “I will make things clearer.”

“You are in no position to dictate terms.”

“I dictate nothing. I will let the captain of this ugly barge explain.”

Sofia paused, and felt her eyes narrow. “I was under the impression I was speaking to her.”

Keyahi gave a sharp, feral smile—Sofia had been right about the effect of her teeth. “You are  _ now.” _

Before Sofia could lose the last of her patience and demand an end to the cryptic time-wasting, Keyahi reached down below the camera and hauled something upright, into view.

The body of an Orion male, covered in dried blood, the hilt of a ceremonial Klingon dagger still protruding from his left eye.

“Change the camera pickup,” Keyahi barked at someone offscreen. The narrow scope of the lens flickered, replaced with a wide-angle conference-call shot of the bridge.

There were a suspicious lack of Orions on the “Orion Syndicate” vessel. The dead captain was the only body immediately visible, but there were half-cleaned streaks of color on the dark floor, burn marks from various energy weapons peppering the walls. Several consoles had been melted, one had clearly exploded; the Vulcan woman sitting grimly behind its semi-functional remains was bleeding so badly from the shrapnel Sofia at first thought she  _ was  _ an Orion. 

The other stations were filled by a ragtag assortment of injured; a Tellarite, an Arcadian, an Andorian. A young human, who couldn’t possibly be older than sixteen. One or two wore rough, ugly electronic collars; not all, and as Sofia took a moment to examine the scene she didn’t see any obvious similarities between them. 

More  _ valuable, _ perhaps; or else the troublemakers.

For the first time, Keyahi lifted her chin, tossing her hair back with a proud jerk and revealing the stun collar around her own neck. Closer to the camera, Sofia could see chafing and the painful blistering of burn marks around the edges.

Oh. _ Oh. _ Oh.

Keyahi’s grin was no less sharp; but it reached her eyes this time. “You understand, Captain.”

“I do.” Part of Sofia was almost irritated that they hadn’t just been honest from the beginning; she’d wasted time and energy posturing at these people instead of helping them. But of course they’d lied. How much more vulnerable a position could Sofia have dreamed up if she was trying to  _ design _ it?

A hundred and fifty people, most of them civilians, many of them wearing shock collars, on a dead ship in a hotly-contested zone. All of them legally worth less than a well-trained targ beast, to half the governments likely to respond…

“Tell us what you need,” she said. “We’ll do nothing without your permission.”

Keyahi inclined her head, the first gesture of true respect Sofia had seen from her. “I concur with your science officer,” she said, then paused. “I...think. This vessel is beyond repair and good riddance. We must stabilize the warp core, and discuss how to evacuate these slaves to safer space! We have some technicians, but very few mechanics. I would request you send us engineers and emergency medics.”

“Our medical facilities will be better than a Syndicate ship,” Sofia pointed out. “Will you allow us to transport your injured?”

“Done.” When a Klingon gave their trust, it seemed, they did so completely. “But I will not abandon them. A group of what warriors I have found will accompany the wounded. They will be armed. They will not be numerous.”

“Acceptable. Our boarding parties will be unarmed.” They’d wasted too much time already, and their passive scans of the Orion ship were growing more alarming by the minute. “Commander—”

Before she could finish the order, the first shuttlecraft had already launched. Sofia blinked and glanced aside at a forgivably smug-looking Yurovsky.

“I adjusted the team composition while you were speaking, sir,” Yurovsky assured her. “Each shuttle contains two field nurses and an Engineering team. The second is on standby if you want to adjust that deployment.”

Part of her felt like she  _ ought _ to adjust it, just for the principle of the thing. After an absurd moment, Sofia shook her head sharply. “Launch. But have a Security ground-response team on standby for the first return trip. I want them to sweep the ship and find any survivors who may have been trapped—just in case Keyahi’s people missed any.” This got a nearly graceful gesture of acknowledgement from the viewscreen. “They should bring phase pistols, just in case any debris has to be destroyed.”

Keyahi pulled her knife free from the Orion’s face with a squelching noise that made Lieutenant Lehtonen turn visibly green.

“We will speak soon,” she said, and closed the channel.

* * *

_ Challenger _ boiled with activity like an overturned anthill.

At least, she had to  _ assume  _ that was the case. Sofia sat in her command chair, foot bouncing, and tried not to pout too obviously over her first officer’s judgemental looks. Yes, yes, she needed to be here to direct operations; but with external comms down from the ion storm and even passive sensors hopelessly scrambled, it was  _ frustrating _ not being down where things were actually happening.

She’d gone down to the shuttlebay to greet Keyahi and the first wave of critical evacuees, of course, but after that, she had gotten out of the way to let her people work. She especially knew better than to get anywhere near the medbay where her presence would only be a distraction to the secondary medical team; Tisarr and Dr. Atakan had both transferred to the freighter with their core teams the moment boarding parties confirmed that it was safe.

The Engineering and Science departments, those few not consumed with the rescue efforts, were monitoring the effects of the ion storm. It was, as Esther had predicted, mild; both the freighter and  _ Challenger _ had hull plating more than heavy and dense enough to protect against its effects. But the shuttles just barely scraped under the extreme edge of safety regulations. They needed to be checked thoroughly but as fast as possible between trips, and the systems onboard the ship proper kept under constant surveillance.

Meanwhile, Security were not fools; a respectable guard was placed over Keyahi’s people just in case, but the vast majority of their manpower was going toward search and rescue. They had also formed a swing division, filling in for the lower-ranking members of more relevant departments to allow those departments to function at full capacity. Security, more than any other division, could spare the bodies to run and fetch, package supplies, organize queues to register the names and origins of survivors so that plans could be set in motion to reunite them with their families.

What Sofia Matos wouldn’t  _ give _ to have her comms back.

Without their communications array, news had to travel in packets—padds and verbal reports, ferried between the two ships by whoever was available.

Between the turbulence of the ion storm and the need to check every shuttle safety system and run a quick field radiation test for the pilots on both ends before sending them out again, each shuttle ran on a thirty-minute loop. Sofia intended to stagger the shuttles and cut iteration time on reports in half as soon as she could; for now, they simply couldn’t afford to have a functional shuttle sitting idle for fifteen minutes when it could be rushing wounded to  _ Challenger _ or engineering supplies back to the Orion freighter.

By the time the shuttles had made two round trips, a pair of matched ‘base camps’ had been established just inside the shuttlebay airlocks. A liaison officer from each department—as well as several Security officers volunteering as clerks—was positioned to receive and summarize urgent reports, calling them through to their department heads and the bridge via internal comms. Less urgent or more thorough reports were transferred from padds to the ship’s computer by the clerks.

The lack of external communications and the resulting game of Telephone made Sofia’s presence on the bridge even more of an absolute necessity than usual.  _ Challenger _ needed someone to act as her head;  _ someone _ on the ship had to know everything, had to consolidate disparate reports and direct this frantic, time-sensitive operation with a hundred and fifty lives hanging in the balance.

This was what it meant to be a captain. This was what it meant to be Starfleet. This was the thing Sofia Matos could do that no one else could match.

It was going to drive her insane. 

She wanted to  _ help. _

The isolation was making it worse. She was nearly alone on the bridge; she’d sent Yurovsky off almost immediately to supervise the base camps, Esther was down in the main Science control center monitoring the ion storm, Lieutenant Lehtonen had put Challenger on autopilot in a parked position and commandeered one of the relief shuttles to bring Tisarr and her alpha-shift team across. 

Even Ensign Sandoval had abandoned her; his fluid, working command of the major known galactic languages was a matter of life and death on that freighter right now, and Sofia had ordered him over on the second round trip. His beta-shift replacement was an anxious petty officer who simply didn’t have Atsa’s skill or creativity.

Yet, Sofia corrected herself firmly. Andrea Hughes was an intelligent and well-trained young officer who was a valuable asset to the crew.

A comm from Port-Side Base Camp pinged, and Sofia thumbed the line open.

_ “Captain.” _

“Commander.”

Yurovsky’s voice was calm, but she spoke quickly and efficiently.  _ “Initial reports from the Engineering teams have begun to come in. They have regained control of matter-antimatter intermix, and halted the acceleration of the warp core overload. That will buy us time.” _

That sounded good, on the surface; but halting the acceleration of the meltdown was not remotely the same as stopping it.

“Can they stabilize the core?” Sofia demanded.

It wasn’t the kind of question to which any reasonable captain expected a simple “yes”. No one could guarantee something like that, and no engineer worth the name would try. 

She knew, roughly, what to expect even before Yurovsky spoke. At worst, her first officer would inform her that a report was being forwarded to the bridge; Sofia intended to insist on that regardless, if only so that she would have something to read to distract herself.

At best, she could almost hear the report in her head:  _ Engineering is cautious, but optimistic. It will be close; they’re doing their best but experiencing setbacks; it’s too soon to know anything for certain; they’re executing a plan to neutralize the warp core and will continue to send reports. _

The prediction raced through her mind at the speed of thought and vanished just as quickly, on the heels of Yurovsky’s response.

It was immediate and quiet, with no hesitation, no hint that a qualifier could conceivably follow.

_ “No, Captain. No, they cannot.” _


	3. Chapter 3

There was only so much a human being could be reasonably expected to tolerate.

Sofia had relocated to Starboard Base Camp. The slight delay of transmitting plans and reports to the bridge was more delay than she could bear.

Thankfully, the rush of critical cases had slowed enough to allow the shuttles to coordinate. With each shuttle on a thirty-minute loop, departures staggered, one shuttle arrived at each ship every fifteen minutes. 

It wasn’t enough. Without sensors, without comms, fifteen minutes was a lifetime.

Over two hundred lifetimes, Sofia thought, sick to her stomach as she imagined what a warp core breach at this range would do to the souls on both vessels.

She crossed between port and starboard base camps as the shuttles arrived, trading off to place Yurovsky at the dormant camp just in case. Sofia knew she was failing to project the steady reliability _Challenger_ needed from her captain; but her arrival was met with relief each time, the stress fading slightly from the shuttlebay attendants’ shoulders as she joined them.

They placed too much faith in her, so terribly much faith…

Reports were agonizingly slow; and yet she seemed trapped in a rapidfire deluge of bad news.

_Shutting down the warp core is no longer possible. Reports indicate that the structural damage is too severe to eject the core._

_Doctor Atakan reports triage complete. All critical cases that could be stabilized on site have been. The core medical team is transferring back aboard Challenger on the next shuttle to better facilitate treatment of those remaining in serious condition._

_Engineering estimates that with deterioration reduced to a steady rate, they can offer us three more hours._

_Science says no-go on transmitting a second distress call. Uncovering the comm array will cause too much damage, and the signal can’t get through the ion storm._

_I’m sorry, sir, Lehtonen just left; we can’t recall him._

_Update from Engineering in the freighter. Tisarr discovered old-fashioned welding torches in the supply hold. She is now investigating the possibility of manually slicing away compromised hull structures to jettison the warp core by hand. She confirms that this will involve manually breaching the hull. Anyone remaining in the engine room would die. She refuses to ask for volunteers when she is capable of performing the task herself—_

“No! No no no! Don’t do that!”

Sofia jumped violently as Lieutenant Sar rolled up beside her, panting. Still, she had the presence of mind to signal the shuttle pilot to wait.

“Sorry, ma’am,” Sar said, not sounding particularly sorry. “I was bringing Larry’s most recent analysis of the ion storm. Based on our previous scans and the current patterns from passive hull sensors, we estimate at least another six hours before the storm clears.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant.” Sofia took the padd from her despite knowing she wouldn’t be able to process its contents. “You say don’t jettison the warp core?”

“I don’t think Tisarr will do it,” Sar assured her quickly. “She’s too good to try something like that in an ion storm without being absolutely certain. But if she jettisons a damaged core in this, the ionization will tear it apart instantly. _Well_ before it reaches a safe distance, ma’am. And that’s assuming the interior bulkheads of the engine room are enough to contain the radiation and keep it from spreading through that breach to the rest of the ship. It’s brave, and I honor her for it, but it would only kill us all faster.”

“Did you catch that?” Sofia asked immediately. A nearby Andorian officer nodded sharply and ran to the shuttlecraft, handing his padd off to the officer inside before slamming the bay doors closed. The shuttle flashed its running lights in the salute her small-craft pilots had picked up from Aleksi and hurried off.

Sofia sighed.

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” she said quietly.

“I wish we could help more,” Sar told her, equally quiet. “It’s starting to get to Esther.”

“I can imagine.” Sofia hesitated. She didn’t even want to say the words, didn’t dare imagine what it would mean; but someone had to, and there was no buck-passing from the big chair. “Bring her the freighter specs and have her look them over. Security reports most of the life pods are intact. I want to know if we have the ability to dock with them.”

Lieutenant Sar closed her eyes, wincing. “We do, ma’am,” she said reluctantly. “But Esther already ran the simulations. We coordinated with the onboard Engineering team an hour ago and had them scan the life pods. They’re not shielded; thirty seconds after launch it would be like putting these people in a 21st-century microwave.”

Sofia managed to contain a flinch of her own. There was room in those lifepods for fifty people, well over what the Fardel-class would normally require; cutting the number of stranded survivors by a third would have been a massive weight off the shoulders of the overtaxed shuttlecraft crews, who would already be hard-pressed to ferry everyone across in time. 

“Very well, Lieutenant,” she sighed. “My thanks for your initiative, and pass it to the department. We’ll have to make do without them.”

As Sofia strode back across the ship to wait at Starboard Base Camp, she managed to snag Yurovsky by the elbow in passing.

“Commander,” she said, then stopped. There suddenly seemed to be a stone in her airway.

After a moment of hesitation, Yurovsky gripped her shoulder and gave a shallow nod.

Sofia took a deep breath, and—for a moment, taking advantage of the empty, silent hallway—allowed herself to clutch her first officer’s solid arm for a few desperate moments.

“Commander,” she said again, steadier this time. “If you’ll please send a runner to the medbay, and ask Keyahi to meet me in the situation room. She should be part of this information flow. And...tell Security to prepare to receive refugees. We need to begin evacuations. Now.”

Where the hell they were going to put all those people...was a concern for herself in forty-five minutes. Right now, there was a ship of one hundred and fifty sentient beings out there, three hours to save them, and two shuttlecraft that could only run on thirty-minute loops. They couldn’t afford to waste any more time.

Yurovsky squeezed her shoulder gently, one more time, before they parted again. Heart like lead in her chest, Sofia made her way back to the bridge and patched the situation room back into internal messaging. For a few minutes she tried and failed to distract herself clicking through the inrushing reports; but nothing offered a solution.

Finally, she opened a comm link to the Science department. “Bridge to Lieutenant-Commander Hasdai.”

Esther responded almost immediately. _“Science to bridge, I hear you.”_

“I have some calculations for you,” Sofia told her, allowing herself a small smile. “I’ve been told you need something to look at that’s not an ion storm.”

_“I’m about five minutes from going absolutely postal down here, so hit me.”_

Sofia tapped a few keys. “We have a hundred and forty-nine people en route,” she told her mad scientist. “I’ve sent you Security’s official count of their respective ages and species, as well as everything we know about the handful of couples and families those Orion monsters hadn’t managed to separate yet. I’d appreciate a preliminary recommendation as to where the hell we’re going to put them all. We’re going to have people camping in hallways, Lieutenant-Commander, and I need to know _which_ hallways.”

The pause was much, much longer than Sofia was expecting.

 _“Sir?”_ Esther asked, in a voice Sofia had never heard from her before. For some reason, the hair on the back of her neck stood on end. _“Confirm, did I hear you wrong? All the survivors from the freighter are transferring to Challenger?”_

“Engineering reports are...grim,” Sofia acknowledged. Her situation room door slid open; Keyahi acknowledged her ongoing call with a curt nod and settled into a free chair with the entitled confidence of a fleet admiral. “We don’t believe there’s any saving that warp core, and it can’t be ejected in an ion storm. That was for Keyahi’s benefit,” she added before Esther could make any snarky commentary on Sofia parroting her own advice back to her. “We’re going to have to give them a lift to the nearest safe port. It’ll be cramped, but we’ll make do.”

There was no quip at all, only another long silence. That cold dread prickling along Sofia’s scalp increased with every thundering heartbeat.

 _“...Sir?”_ Esther’s voice was hollow and hesitant and just a tiny bit pitying. _“With what life support?”_

* * *

Sofia stood with her hands braced flat against the situation-room table, staring at the readouts as if she could make them say something different.

 _Challenger_ was a phenomenal ship. But Esther was right; the nearest safe port by travel time, according to Astrometrics, was not exactly a day trip. And in the meantime, they needed to breathe.

“Again,” Keyahi ordered. She was nearly a perfect mirror of Sofia herself, across the table; a padd with their technical readouts and a universal translator resting on the table between splayed palms, head bowed as if in prayer.

Around them, Esther was pacing.

 _“Challenger_ has a crew complement of eighty-five,” she said..

“She was designed for eighty-three,” murmured Sofia. “But Andorian security teams are larger than ours. It should never have caused any real problem.”

Keyahi grunted in acknowledgement, and Esther continued wearing a hole through the floor of the situation room.

“Life support’s heavy and expensive and takes up space,” she said. “We have what we need and we have emergency backups, but there are limits.”

Tisarr’s voice broke in over the comms. Sofia had finally been forced to pull her off the freighter and back onboard _Challenger,_ even as it chilled her blood to do it. It meant...giving up. Accepting that there was no way to save the freighter. But they had two hours now at absolute most to rescue a hundred and fifty people, and they needed their alpha-team and Chief Engineer if they were going to have any chance of pulling that off.

There were other reasons. It was the same reason she’d recalled all but one of the security teams, the same reason she’d pulled Atsa Sandoval back onboard _Challenger_ with the excuse of needing him to help orient the survivors when they arrived.

Sofia Matos knew her people, and she had her duty. If they hadn’t been pulled back before this conversation happened, they would have refused to leave. The ship could not function without them—and the safety of her crew, as well as that of the refugees, was Sofia’s responsibility.

They couldn’t even spare Tisarr for a consultation, not when every moment she was tinkering with their systems meant life or death. But she could keep a comm link open to Engineering.

 _“There is a fifteen percent safety margin,”_ the Caitian pointed out. _“All starships have these. On Cait the margin is twenty percent, but our space travel is older than yours.”_

“Fuck the safety margins,” Esther snapped. “People are going to die.”

 _“Lieutenant-Commander.”_ But Sofia didn’t bother pretending to be genuinely angry. She turned back to the Engineering pickup. “Tisarr, _Challenger_ hasn’t failed us yet. She’ll fight for us if we ask. Redline life support and double the techs on duty; hold her together with your bare hands if you have to.” Tisarr’s affirmative was clear and bold, and Sofia glanced up at her Science officer. “How many can we bring onboard if we pull that off?”

Esther’s brief grin faltered as numbers flickered almost visibly behind her eyes. “Twelve. Thirteen if we actually drive into the red."

Sofia cringed. Keyahi, however, took the pitiful number in her stride. “Good,” she rumbled. The rest, Sofia had to read off the translation units. “Twelve is not zero.”

Sofia took a deep breath. “All right. Lieutenant, make those life support alterations.”

_“Already done.”_

Sofia reached for the comm, then stopped so sharply a physical spasm ran up her arm. She’d intended to order the next shuttle out immediately, but—

Twelve people. Twelve people out of a hundred and fifty.

How was she meant to _choose…?_

Keyahi’s dark, exhausted eyes told her the Klingon had come to the same conclusion.

Esther’s voice was bitter. “Women and children first?” Keyahi gave a soft huff of mirthless laughter. Her people were familiar with that concept too, it seemed.

“Children, yes,” she decided. “There are few enough.”

Eleven. Yurovsky’s security teams had put the headcount together in record time, with Ensign Sandoval’s help. There were eleven on the freighter who were below the age of majority for their species, and one of them Sofia suspected would not evacuate until everyone else had—the human teenager, who had taken on the role of second officer in Keyahi’s absence. Of the eleven, only three had been captured with parents who were still alive.

“We would have to separate families,” she realized, nauseous at the fact that she was even able to say it out loud. “Eleven and one, for now…”

“Four,” Esther corrected. At Sofia’s blank look, she looked equal parts pained and angry. “We have eight onboard already, if you forgot. Seven in sickbay.”

Sofia closed her eyes.

“Keyahi,” she said. “I can’t _choose_ who lives and dies. No one has the right to...it will have to be a lottery.”

The Klingon captain gave another low grunt. “Give those in your medical bay the opportunity to return. Many will volunteer. Only a coward would remain comfortable in bed, spared by mere chance and injury, while children die!”

Challenging that characterization of someone simply not signing up to die would take more time and oxygen than they possessed. Quietly, Sofia replied, “A coward’s life is a life nonetheless. If they volunteer, we’ll allow it. We will _not_ allow you to pressure them. I’m going to set up a lottery. Esther, Tisarr…”

Esther’s response was immediate, a dangerous flash of hard determination in her eyes. “Twelve’s not good enough.”

 _“Agreed,”_ said Tisarr. _“There is a way. We will find it.”_


	4. Chapter 4

They tried.

They’d all tried, and Sofia was achingly proud of her crew. They had found workarounds that shouldn’t have been possible. The loss of the freighter’s life pods had been devastating; aside from the fifty lives that might have been saved if not for the radiation, all of the pods’ internal electronics had been destroyed by exposure.

Tisarr’s reaction to hearing that her ingenious plan to string together multiple life-support units and boost  _ Challenger _ ’s own system by nearly double was worthless had not translated. Sofia had pretended only to notice the cursing, and not the angry tears threatening at the edge of her chief engineer’s eyes. So Caitians, too, could cry.

They were running out of time.

The shuttlecraft had independent life-support systems that were intended to sustain six people indefinitely; unfortunately, running overloaded through ion storms had begun to degrade those systems. They could support six people, certainly—for a few hours, and not beyond. It would only be a slower death. But three people each could be done, if only just.

Six more lives. 

Tisarr had managed to seal off all life support from non-residential areas, concentrating oxygen and climate control power. They’d moved as many replacement parts and essential tools as they could out of storage areas and under beds, into unused corners...and if something went wrong, there was still a very good chance that the un-replicable spare part they needed would be in a freezing, oxygenless cargo hold that they couldn’t open without killing everyone on board.

But they could support a dozen refugees with that increased function.

The Science and Engineering departments were enmeshed in a whirlwind, trying to find an answer, trying to find something they hadn’t already thought of. A seamless cycling between main and auxiliary life support had increased the capacity of the overall system...

Esther had given them the biggest breakthrough. Working head-to-head with Tisarr, she’d managed to completely rewrite the entire power-cycling algorithm for the ship. Their weapons would be weaker, hull polarization would be less resilient...but it had nearly doubled the additional system capacity.

And with everything they’d done, the heroic efforts they had gone to, that game-changing revolution had gotten them space for only nine more people.

“There’s something I’m missing.”

Atsa’s voice was tender. “Esther…”

_ “There’s something I’m missing! _ There has to be!”

Yurovsky sighed; Sofia glanced over her shoulder and shook her head. She stood, crossing on silent feet to Esther’s station and reaching out to grip the young woman’s shoulder.

Esther’s fingers clenched, but she didn’t shrug off the contact.

Sofia closed her eyes and breathed, trying to find words that wouldn’t sound insincere. If she could find a way to convince someone that doing her best was enough…

Well, Sofia would get right back to herself the moment she found a way to believe that.

For now, she gave her Science officer’s shoulder one last squeeze.

“She who saves a single life, Esther.”

A shudder ran through the poor woman’s shoulders, but she took a deep breath and nodded tersely. Sofia tucked a flyaway strand of hair behind Esther’s ear and sank back into the command chair.

Until now Keyahi had been standing at what Sofia assumed was Klingon parade rest. Now, she sighed and stood straight. She set her shoulders, firm and deliberate, and Sofia knew what it meant. She would have done the same in a heartbeat.

“I will return with your next shuttlecraft,” Keyahi informed her.

“I wish you wouldn’t,” Sofia answered, soft and simple. “But I understand.”

“Mmm.” Keyahi clasped her hands behind her back, looking Sofia over slowly. “You do. I did not expect this of a human. You may understand honor after all, that you will not stop me from restoring my own from this disgrace.”

Sofia frowned.

She had wondered, what a Klingon warrior was doing in the hold of an Orion slave ship. If she felt she’d dishonored herself...perhaps she had something to redeem after all. A trade gone bad, perhaps…

Keyahi gave a sharp, heavy huff. “I was captured alive,” she bit out, clenching a fist. “I allowed myself to be tricked—it is not important. There is no excuse! There is no greater dishonor. No greater failure as a warrior. My enemies were not forced to kill me; my skill and strength were not sufficient.”

“You broke free and killed them all,” Sofia pointed out. “Rallied their victims behind you, took control of the ship, and found help. You lead a hundred and fifty people now.”

Keyahi wrinkled her nose. “Aliens and weaklings,” she spat. “All I am fit to command.”

“If you think so little of our worth, why die for them?”

“I embrace my weakness.” She bared her teeth, fist clenching and unclenching at her side. “I was not able to prevent myself from being captured. I was not granted the blessing of a glorious death in battle. I am unfit for the company of any but captured weaklings, and I cannot—I should feel disgust at their cowardice. But they are not warriors. And I am not better than them. My spirit will never join my ancestors whose deaths were honorable and glorious. I would not then flee from my fate! If I must lose my honor I will not run from death like a coward.” She gestured sharply at the dead viewscreen, toward the distant freighter they could no longer see. “They are afraid, and they suffer in their fear. Many will die, and death is an experience best shared. I may give them courage in the end.”

“You care for them,” Sofia translated.

“Bah.” Keyahi glared. “I am large and require much air to breathe. Two children easily could take my place. And so I trade one life without honor, for two that may yet grow to bring glory to their names. You see affection where none exists.”

Sofia watched her for several moments.

“Among our people,” she said quietly, “Strength is viewed as the ability to defend others. A man doesn’t need to be powerful to harm someone; cowards and weaklings hurt others every day. The ability to  _ defend  _ requires either strength or influence, true power. For us, honor is when the strong choose to protect the weak.”

“Mmm.” Keyahi glared at the floor. “Your people echo the wisdom of Kahless, though they do not know it. He once said something much the same. And yet I lack this strength. I may not run bold risks for them, or place myself between them and the touch of death.” After a long pause, she nodded to herself and straightened again. 

Slowly and deliberately, she drew the jagged knife from her belt. Yurovsky stiffened and reached for her phase pistol; Keyahi didn’t blink, and Sofia stood slowly without flinching.

“This weapon,” said Keyahi, “is known as  _ d’k tahg. _ It bears the emblem of the Great House to which my family are vassals. I am Keyashi, daughter of Eshok. My father died in glorious battle. My mother can no longer bear children. I have no brothers, and I am the last of my sisters still alive. With my death, my line is broken. I would not have this. I would not carry the name of my ancestors into the dark without a song. I can do no more to restore honor to my name; but another warrior with honor and courage may yet bring glory to my line.”

She turned the blade in her hand, not even seeming to notice the bite of the razor-sharp edge drawing blood from her palm.

There was no choice to be made. Sofia took the hilt, and clipped the dagger to her belt.

Finally, Keyahi smiled.

* * *

There was nothing but to wait, now.

Sofia couldn’t decide whether the lack of sensors made it easier or infinitely worse. They couldn’t watch the freighter, let alone communicate. Ensign Larold in Sensor Control had promised that the bare-minimum passive and hull sensors would let them know when…

Well. It would let them know when.

There was one last shuttle returning, this one bearing padds with messages from all those who remained behind. Most of those who remained had volunteered to stay behind “until” a solution could be found, sending others in their place; they were not fools, and knew perfectly well that there would be no more miracles. Not everyone left behind had been in that number.

Alone of the bridge crew, Aleksi Lehtonen was still afield. There were very few pilots in the galaxy who could move at speed, safely, in an ion storm. Especially without sensors to guide him, travelling between two vessels that by necessity were beginning to power away from each other at low impulse, in an attempt to spare _Challenger_ from the warp core breach that would happen at any moment. 

Engineering couldn’t know for certain, of course; and there were engineers among the refugees as well, still in the engine room, grimly fighting for every second. Sofia knew that the teams she’d pulled back to  _ Challenger _ felt sick over not being there with them. But the next two weeks would see them even more badly needed in  _ this  _ engine room, keeping life support working with prayer and duct tape.

Triage, she thought grimly. Prioritizing resources for those who could still survive.

She had a new respect for Dr. Atakan. How could anyone stay  _ sane, _ having to make these calls every day?

But while no one knew for certain when it would...happen...they knew enough to guess. Enough that once this final shuttle returned, there would be no more. She hadn’t wanted to allow  _ this _ one, but Lieutenant Lehtonen had barely waited for permission. He’d simply announced that those still waiting on the freighter were writing final letters as they spoke, and that he was making one last trip to pick them up.

It was the security team head—a human, they hadn’t lost  _ all _ their security personnel—who had convinced her. He’d gotten on the comm, confident but subdued, explaining that he would ensure the safety of the mission.

When a ship is sinking, he’d said, the victims swamp a lifeboat if it gets close. They’re panicking, drowning. They’re not capable of understanding that fighting to get on the boat will only kill more people. I don’t think there’s any danger of that right now; but we’re going anyway, just to make sure Aleksi here is safe. We’ll be back in twenty minutes.

And she’d allowed it.

If they didn’t get back in time, there were seven more deaths on her hands.

A symbol lit up in the corner of the otherwise blank viewscreen; with sensors offline for the ion storm, there was nothing else to display.

_ Port shuttle home. _

That was it, then. They had done what little they could.

Five minutes later, she got the alert from port-side base camp, the last before they would pack up and return to normal operations. The starboard side had already cleared;  _ Challenger _ ’s razor-edge balance of life support required any non-essential areas to be cut off, and that meant shuttlebays. The shuttles would have to survive on their own power and the supplies loaded on before cutoff for the next two weeks.

_ Padds received, messages being saved to ship’s computers for safety. Preparing to offload security team. _

There was a long pause between alerts. Then, abruptly, the comm chimed.

_ “Port shuttlebay to bridge.” _

“Captain speaking. What’s happened?”

_ “Captain, you…” _ A sigh.  _ “You may want to...Lieutenant Aleksi may be able to explain. It’s the security team, sir.” _

Forcing aside visions of desperate fighting over lifeboats, Sofia swallowed. “What happened to them?”

“Internal scans are in,” Esther interrupted the response. “Seven strong lifesigns on that shuttle. Not...consistent with human or Andorian signals, except for Aleksi in the cockpit.  _ Baruch dayan ha'emet. _ Crazy bastar d s.”

“I knew them.” Yurovsky’s voice was deceptively steady. “They made their choice.”

Of course they had. Hadn’t Sofia been afraid of this from the beginning? How could she have let them leave,  _ why _ hadn’t she seen this coming?

“I shouldn’t have let them go,” she breathed.

Yurovsky shook her head. “I’m only surprised Lehtonen didn’t join them.”

Something in Sofia’s heart clenched at the mere suggestion. Atsa flinched as well, but shook his head.

“Aleksi’s the only pilot who could have gotten them out and back in time, especially in a malfunctioning shuttle,” he said, hard grip on his headset belying his calm voice. “Captain, don’t...blame him, he wouldn’t have meant—”

Esther physically flinched away from her console, and the bridge went deathly still.

Sofia closed her eyes. Carefully, the spines in the pommel threatening to break skin, she squeezed the Klingon dagger at her side.

She stood, and said quietly, “We did what we could.”

The situation room doors slid closed behind her, and she nearly collapsed against the table. 

Six more from the willing sacrifice of her security team. Three huddled in each shuttlecraft. Two children, traded for Keyahi’s life. Thirteen, from driving life support past its limits in a way that might still kill them all…

She didn’t hear the doors open again, and barely heard Yurovsky’s voice.

“Sir.”

Not now, not _ now, _ give her five minutes to hate herself for her uselessness, her inability to do anything of worth in the face of this. They had done nothing, sat here and been unable to even  _ watch  _ while over a hundred people vanished in a blip of sensor data…

“Captain.  _ Sofia.” _

Just barely, she twitched; and that seemed enough for her first officer. Yurovsky gripped her upper arm, but made no other movement.

“Sofia,” she managed again. “It matters that you tried.”

“Forty-eight,” Sofia whispered. On a ship designed for no more than eighty-three people they had crammed a hundred and twenty seven, and with the sacrifice of the security team they had added six more. “Forty-eight people, there were a  _ hundred and fifty of them _ —”

“And forty-eight are alive,” was the quiet response. “Because we fought for them. It matters to  _ them _ that you did everything you could.”

She was right, Sofia knew it; it was what she had said to Esther less than an hour ago, but…

For now, the crushing silence of space around them was too much, and Natalia Yurovsky was the only person the captain of a starship could be  _ human  _ in front of, and she let her friend hold her while she cried.


End file.
